


To belong

by ezilo



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 00:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11566839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ezilo/pseuds/ezilo
Summary: Being a victor means being alone.Being a mentor means trying not to be. It means trying to save a life, when you are only alive because you learned to take them.





	To belong

Haymitch is blond, like the rich ones  
Haymitch has gray eyes, like the poor ones  
Haymitch has money now, like the rich ones  
Haymitch grew up with an empty stomach, like the poor ones  
Haymitch is an addict, like the poor ones (and the rich ones; but no one talks about those)

But Haymitch is a victor, a 12 victor, like no one.

Until  
Those  
Kids. 

A blond one.  
A gray-eyed one.  
A rich one.  
A poor one.  
And it's like they _understand_  
His paintbrush is his alcohol. It just burns the memories in a different way.  
He wonders how long it will take them to start sleeping with a knife under their pillow  
He curses Effie like he never has before when her manicured fingers pick his name. The boy volunteers, idiot. Haymitch shudders as his words bring back hers, from a year before. 

Maybe they don't understand after all, because they cling to each other and not to a knife when the nightmares are too deep and the reality of the games plants its ugly nails into their sleep.  
Surrounded by other ghosts of games past, he thinks once again the victors are the biggest losers of the games.

He wonders absentmindedly whose voice he would hear from those birds. And he's scared that he may actually hear someone – may hear them. They're kids, they'll die, just like you should have. 

But maybe they won't – you see, Haymitch, for the first time in quite a while, has a plan.   
Because Haymitch wants a shot at not being on his own, no longer alone.   
And perhaps being a victor just means you will do anything to  
Survive.   
But being a mentor means you would do anything to make _them_ survive.  
But Haymitch is just a selfish victor, and loses one of his tributes to insanity. Her gray eyes fit, like his, in this monochromatic district that really isn't one; to truly be a district of Panem you have to have given the Capitol One Hundred and Fifty of your children. And he lost another to   
the Big Bad  
the Criminal, Judge, and Hangman  
the Capitol has between its claws,  
The blond one who loved the one with gray eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I know. In the books, Haymitch isn't blond. But watching the movies the idea came to me so... tell me what you think! Haymitch was always my favorite character to study


End file.
